Mr. Standfast, by John Buchan

Chapter Twenty-One

How an Exile Returned to His Own People

Next morning I found the Army Commander on his way to Doullens.

‘Take over the division?’ he said. ‘Certainly. I’m afraid there isn’t much left of it. I’ll tell Carr to get through
to the Corps Headquarters, when he can find them. You’ll have to nurse the remnants, for they can’t be pulled out yet —
not for a day or two. Bless me, Hannay, there are parts of our line which we’re holding with a man and a boy. You’ve
got to stick it out till the French take over. We’re not hanging on by our eyelids — it’s our eyelashes now.’

‘What about positions to fall back on, sir?’ I asked.

‘We’re doing our best, but we haven’t enough men to prepare them.’ He plucked open a map. ‘There we’re digging a
line — and there. If we can hold that bit for two days we shall have a fair line resting on the river. But we mayn’t
have time.’

Then I told him about Blenkiron, whom of course he had heard of. ‘He was one of the biggest engineers in the States,
and he’s got a nailing fine eye for country. He’ll make good somehow if you let him help in the job.’

‘The very fellow,’ he said, and he wrote an order. ‘Take this to Jacks and he’ll fix up a temporary commission. Your
man can find a uniform somewhere in Amiens.’

After that I went to the detail camp and found that Ivery had duly arrived.

‘The prisoner has given no trouble, sirr,’ Hamilton reported. ‘But he’s a wee thing peevish. They’re saying that the
Gairmans is gettin’ on fine, and I was tellin’ him that he should be proud of his ain folk. But he wasn’t verra weel
pleased.’

Three days had wrought a transformation in Ivery. That face, once so cool and capable, was now sharpened like a
hunted beast’s. His imagination was preying on him and I could picture its torture. He, who had been always at the top
directing the machine, was now only a cog in it. He had never in his life been anything but powerful; now he was
impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar world, in the grip of something which he feared and didn’t understand, in the
charge of men who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness. It was like a proud and bullying manager suddenly
forced to labour in a squad of navvies, and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear of what was coming.

He made an appeal to me.

‘Do the English torture their prisoners?’ he asked. ‘You have beaten me. I own it, and I plead for mercy. I will go
on my knees if you like. I am not afraid of death — in my own way.’

‘Few people are afraid of death — in their own way.’

‘Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.’

‘Not as we define the thing,’ I said.

His jaw dropped. ‘What are you going to do with me?’ he quavered.

‘You have been a soldier,’ I said. ‘You are going to see a little fighting — from the ranks. There will be no
brutality, you will be armed if you want to defend yourself, you will have the same chance of survival as the men
around you. You may have heard that your countrymen are doing well. It is even possible that they may win the battle.
What was your forecast to me? Amiens in two days, Abbeville in three. Well, you are a little behind scheduled time, but
still you are prospering. You told me that you were the chief architect of all this, and you are going to be given the
chance of seeing it, perhaps of sharing in it — from the other side. Does it not appeal to your sense of justice?’

He groaned and turned away. I had no more pity for him than I would have had for a black mamba that had killed my
friend and was now caught to a cleft tree. Nor, oddly enough, had Wake. If we had shot Ivery outright at St Anton, I am
certain that Wake would have called us murderers. Now he was in complete agreement. His passionate hatred of war made
him rejoice that a chief contriver of war should be made to share in its terrors.

‘He tried to talk me over this morning,’ he told me. ‘Claimed he was on my side and said the kind of thing I used to
say last year. It made me rather ashamed of some of my past performances to hear that scoundrel imitating them
. . . By the way, Hannay, what are you going to do with me?’

‘You’re coming on my staff. You’re a stout fellow and I can’t do without you.’

‘Remember I won’t fight.’

‘You won’t be asked to. We’re trying to stem the tide which wants to roll to the sea. You know how the Boche behaves
in occupied country, and Mary’s in Amiens.’

At that news he shut his lips.

‘Still —’ he began.

‘Still,’ I said. ‘I don’t ask you to forfeit one of your blessed principles. You needn’t fire a shot. But I want a
man to carry orders for me, for we haven’t a line any more, only a lot of blobs like quicksilver. I want a clever man
for the job and a brave one, and I know that you’re not afraid.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I am — much. Well. I’m content!’

I started Blenkiron off in a car for Corps Headquarters, and in the afternoon took the road myself. I knew every
inch of the country — the lift of the hill east of Amiens, the Roman highway that ran straight as an arrow to St
Quentin, the marshy lagoons of the Somme, and that broad strip of land wasted by battle between Dompierre and Peronne.
I had come to Amiens through it in January, for I had been up to the line before I left for Paris, and then it had been
a peaceful place, with peasants tilling their fields, and new buildings going up on the old battle-field, and
carpenters busy at cottage roofs, and scarcely a transport waggon on the road to remind one of war. Now the main route
was choked like the Albert road when the Somme battle first began — troops going up and troops coming down, the latter
in the last stage of weariness; a ceaseless traffic of ambulances one way and ammunition waggons the other; busy staff
cars trying to worm a way through the mass; strings of gun horses, oddments of cavalry, and here and there blue French
uniforms. All that I had seen before; but one thing was new to me. Little country carts with sad-faced women and
mystified children in them and piles of household plenishing were creeping westward, or stood waiting at village doors.
Beside these tramped old men and boys, mostly in their Sunday best as if they were going to church. I had never seen
the sight before, for I had never seen the British Army falling back. The dam which held up the waters had broken and
the dwellers in the valley were trying to save their pitiful little treasures. And over everything, horse and man, cart
and wheelbarrow, road and tillage, lay the white March dust, the sky was blue as June, small birds were busy in the
copses, and in the corners of abandoned gardens I had a glimpse of the first violets.

Presently as we topped a rise we came within full noise of the guns. That, too, was new to me, for it was no
ordinary bombardment. There was a special quality in the sound, something ragged, straggling, intermittent, which I had
never heard before. It was the sign of open warfare and a moving battle.

At Peronne, from which the newly returned inhabitants had a second time fled, the battle seemed to be at the doors.
There I had news of my division. It was farther south towards St Christ. We groped our way among bad roads to where its
headquarters were believed to be, while the voice of the guns grew louder. They turned out to be those of another
division, which was busy getting ready to cross the river. Then the dark fell, and while airplanes flew west into the
sunset there was a redder sunset in the east, where the unceasing flashes of gunfire were pale against the angry glow
of burning dumps. The sight of the bonnet-badge of a Scots Fusilier made me halt, and the man turned out to belong to
my division. Half an hour later I was taking over from the much-relieved Masterton in the ruins of what had once been a
sugar-beet factory.

There to my surprise I found Lefroy. The Boche had held him prisoner for precisely eight hours. During that time he
had been so interested in watching the way the enemy handled an attack that he had forgotten the miseries of his
position. He described with blasphemous admiration the endless wheel by which supplies and reserve troops move up, the
silence, the smoothness, the perfect discipline. Then he had realized that he was a captive and unwounded, and had gone
mad. Being a heavy-weight boxer of note, he had sent his two guards spinning into a ditch, dodged the ensuing shots,
and found shelter in the lee of a blazing ammunition dump where his pursuers hesitated to follow. Then he had spent an
anxious hour trying to get through an outpost line, which he thought was Boche. Only by overhearing an exchange of
oaths in the accents of Dundee did he realize that it was our own . . . It was a comfort to have Lefroy back,
for he was both stout-hearted and resourceful. But I found that I had a division only on paper. It was about the
strength of a brigade, the brigades battalions, and the battalions companies.

This is not the place to write the story of the week that followed. I could not write it even if I wanted to, for I
don’t know it. There was a plan somewhere, which you will find in the history books, but with me it was blank chaos.
Orders came, but long before they arrived the situation had changed, and I could no more obey them than fly to the
moon. Often I had lost touch with the divisions on both flanks. Intelligence arrived erratically out of the void, and
for the most part we worried along without it. I heard we were under the French — first it was said to be Foch, and
then Fayolle, whom I had met in Paris. But the higher command seemed a million miles away, and we were left to use our
mother wits. My problem was to give ground as slowly as possible and at the same time not to delay too long, for
retreat we must, with the Boche sending in brand-new divisions each morning. It was a kind of war worlds distant from
the old trench battles, and since I had been taught no other I had to invent rules as I went along. Looking back, it
seems a miracle that any of us came out of it. Only the grace of God and the uncommon toughness of the British soldier
bluffed the Hun and prevented him pouring through the breach to Abbeville and the sea. We were no better than a
mosquito curtain stuck in a doorway to stop the advance of an angry bull.

The Army Commander was right; we were hanging on with our eyelashes. We must have been easily the weakest part of
the whole front, for we were holding a line which was never less than two miles and was often, as I judged, nearer
five, and there was nothing in reserve to us except some oddments of cavalry who chased about the whole battle-field
under vague orders. Mercifully for us the Boche blundered. Perhaps he did not know our condition, for our airmen were
magnificent and you never saw a Boche plane over our line by day, though they bombed us merrily by night. If he had
called our bluff we should have been done, but he put his main strength to the north and the south of us. North he
pressed hard on the Third Army, but he got well hammered by the Guards north of Bapaume and he could make no headway at
Arras. South he drove at the Paris railway and down the Oise valley, but there Petain’s reserves had arrived, and the
French made a noble stand.

Not that he didn’t fight hard in the centre where we were, but he hadn’t his best troops, and after we got west of
the bend of the Somme he was outrunning his heavy guns. Still, it was a desperate enough business, for our flanks were
all the time falling back, and we had to conform to movements we could only guess at. After all, we were on the direct
route to Amiens, and it was up to us to yield slowly so as to give Haig and Petain time to get up supports. I was a
miser about every yard of ground, for every yard and every minute were precious. We alone stood between the enemy and
the city, and in the city was Mary.

If you ask me about our plans I can’t tell you. I had a new one every hour. I got instructions from the Corps, but,
as I have said, they were usually out of date before they arrived, and most of my tactics I had to invent myself. I had
a plain task, and to fulfil it I had to use what methods the Almighty allowed me. I hardly slept, I ate little, I was
on the move day and night, but I never felt so strong in my life. It seemed as if I couldn’t tire, and, oddly enough, I
was happy. If a man’s whole being is focused on one aim, he has no time to worry . . . I remember we were all
very gentle and soft-spoken those days. Lefroy, whose tongue was famous for its edge, now cooed like a dove. The troops
were on their uppers, but as steady as rocks. We were against the end of the world, and that stiffens a man
. . .

Day after day saw the same performance. I held my wavering front with an outpost line which delayed each new attack
till I could take its bearings. I had special companies for counter-attack at selected points, when I wanted time to
retire the rest of the division. I think we must have fought more than a dozen of such little battles. We lost men all
the time, but the enemy made no big scoop, though he was always on the edge of one. Looking back, it seems like a
succession of miracles. Often I was in one end of a village when the Boche was in the other. Our batteries were always
on the move, and the work of the gunners was past praising. Sometimes we faced east, sometimes north, and once at a
most critical moment due south, for our front waved and blew like a flag at a masthead . . . Thank God, the
enemy was getting away from his big engine, and his ordinary troops were fagged and poor in quality. It was when his
fresh shock battalions came on that I held my breath . . . He had a heathenish amount of machine-guns and he
used them beautifully. Oh, I take my hat off to the Boche performance. He was doing what we had tried to do at the
Somme and the Aisne and Arras and Ypres, and he was more or less succeeding. And the reason was that he was going
bald-headed for victory.

The men, as I have said, were wonderfully steady and patient under the fiercest trial that soldiers can endure. I
had all kinds in the division — old army, new army, Territorials — and you couldn’t pick and choose between them. They
fought like Trojans, and, dirty, weary, and hungry, found still some salt of humour in their sufferings. It was a proof
of the rock-bottom sanity of human nature. But we had one man with us who was hardly sane. . . .

In the hustle of those days I now and then caught sight of Ivery. I had to be everywhere at all hours, and often
visited that remnant of Scots Fusiliers into which the subtlest brain in Europe had been drafted. He and his keepers
were never on outpost duty or in any counter-attack. They were part of the mass whose only business was to retire
discreetly. This was child’s play to Hamilton, who had been out since Mons; and Amos, after taking a day to get used to
it, wrapped himself in his grim philosophy and rather enjoyed it. You couldn’t surprise Amos any more than a Turk. But
the man with them, whom they never left — that was another matter.

‘For the first wee bit,’ Hamilton reported, ‘we thocht he was gaun daft. Every shell that came near he jumped like a
young horse. And the gas! We had to tie on his mask for him, for his hands were fushionless. There was whiles when he
wadna be hindered from standin’ up and talkin’ to hisself, though the bullets was spittin’. He was what ye call
demoralized . . . Syne he got as though he didna hear or see onything. He did what we tell’t him, and when we
let him be he sat down and grat. He’s aye greetin’ . . . Queer thing, sirr, but the Gairmans canna hit him.
I’m aye shakin’ bullets out o’ my claes, and I’ve got a hole in my shoulder, and Andra took a bash on his tin that wad
hae felled onybody that hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the prisoner taks no scaith. Our boys are feared of him.
There was an Irishman says to me that he had the evil eye, and ye can see for yerself that he’s no canny.’

I saw that his skin had become like parchment and that his eyes were glassy. I don’t think he recognized me.

‘Does he take his meals?’ I asked.

‘He doesna eat muckle. But he has an unco thirst. Ye canna keep him off the men’s water-bottles.’

He was learning very fast the meaning of that war he had so confidently played with. I believe I am a merciful man,
but as I looked at him I felt no vestige of pity. He was dreeing the weird he had prepared for others. I thought of
Scudder, of the thousand friends I had lost, of the great seas of blood and the mountains of sorrow this man and his
like had made for the world. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the long ridges above Combles and Longueval which
the salt of the earth had fallen to win, and which were again under the hoof of the Boche. I thought of the distracted
city behind us and what it meant to me, and the weak, the pitifully weak screen which was all its defence. I thought of
the foul deeds which had made the German name to stink by land and sea, foulness of which he was the arch-begetter. And
then I was amazed at our forbearance. He would go mad, and madness for him was more decent than sanity.

I had another man who wasn’t what you might call normal, and that was Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if
you understand me. He had never been properly under fire before, but he didn’t give a straw for it. I had known the
same thing with other men, and they generally ended by crumpling up, for it isn’t natural that five or six feet of
human flesh shouldn’t be afraid of what can torture and destroy it. The natural thing is to be always a little scared,
like me, but by an effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But Wake apparently never gave it
a thought. He wasn’t foolhardy, only indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of contentment.
Even the horrors — and we had plenty of them — didn’t affect him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious
open innocence like Peter’s. I would have been happier if he had been a little rattled.

One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety, I talked to him as we smoked in what had once been a French
dug-out. He was an extra right arm to me, and I told him so. ‘This must be a queer experience for you,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it is very wonderful. I did not think a man could go through it and keep his reason. But I know
many things I did not know before. I know that the soul can be reborn without leaving the body.’

I stared at him, and he went on without looking at me.

‘You’re not a classical scholar, Hannay? There was a strange cult in the ancient world, the worship of Magna Mater —
the Great Mother. To enter into her mysteries the votary passed through a bath of blood —— I think I am passing through
that bath. I think that like the initiate I shall be renatus in aeternum— reborn into the eternal.’

I advised him to have a drink, for that talk frightened me. It looked as if he were becoming what the Scots call
‘fey’. Lefroy noticed the same thing and was always speaking about it. He was as brave as a bull himself, and with very
much the same kind of courage; but Wake’s gallantry perturbed him. ‘I can’t make the chap out,’ he told me. ‘He behaves
as if his mind was too full of better things to give a damn for Boche guns. He doesn’t take foolish risks — I don’t
mean that, but he behaves as if risks didn’t signify. It’s positively eerie to see him making notes with a steady hand
when shells are dropping like hailstones and we’re all thinking every minute’s our last. You’ve got to be careful with
him, sir. He’s a long sight too valuable for us to spare.’

Lefroy was right about that, for I don’t know what I should have done without him. The worst part of our job was to
keep touch with our flanks, and that was what I used Wake for. He covered country like a moss-trooper, sometimes on a
rusty bicycle, oftener on foot, and you couldn’t tire him. I wonder what other divisions thought of the grimy private
who was our chief means of communication. He knew nothing of military affairs before, but he got the hang of this
rough-and-tumble fighting as if he had been born for it. He never fired a shot; he carried no arms; the only weapons he
used were his brains. And they were the best conceivable. I never met a staff officer who was so quick at getting a
point or at sizing up a situation. He had put his back into the business, and first-class talent is not common
anywhere. One day a G. S. O. from a neighbouring division came to see me.

‘Where on earth did you pick up that man Wake?’ he asked.

‘He’s a conscientious objector and a non-combatant,’ I said.

‘Then I wish to Heaven we had a few more conscientious objectors in this show. He’s the only fellow who seems to
know anything about this blessed battle. My general’s sending you a chit about him.’

‘No need,’ I said, laughing. ‘I know his value. He’s an old friend of mine.’

I used Wake as my link with Corps Headquarters, and especially with Blenkiron. For about the sixth day of the show I
was beginning to get rather desperate. This kind of thing couldn’t go on for ever. We were miles back now, behind the
old line of ‘17, and, as we rested one flank on the river, the immediate situation was a little easier. But I had lost
a lot of men, and those that were left were blind with fatigue. The big bulges of the enemy to north and south had
added to the length of the total front, and I found I had to fan out my thin ranks. The Boche was still pressing on,
though his impetus was slacker. If he knew how little there was to stop him in my section he might make a push which
would carry him to Amiens. Only the magnificent work of our airmen had prevented him getting that knowledge, but we
couldn’t keep the secrecy up for ever. Some day an enemy plane would get over, and it only needed the drive of a fresh
storm-battalion or two to scatter us. I wanted a good prepared position, with sound trenches and decent wiring. Above
all I wanted reserves — reserves. The word was on my lips all day and it haunted my dreams. I was told that the French
were to relieve us, but when — when? My reports to Corps Headquarters were one long wail for more troops. I knew there
was a position prepared behind us, but I needed men to hold it.

Wake brought in a message from Blenkiron. ‘We’re waiting for you, Dick,’ he wrote, ‘and we’ve gotten quite a nice
little home ready for you. This old man hasn’t hustled so hard since he struck copper in Montana in ‘92. We’ve dug
three lines of trenches and made a heap of pretty redoubts, and I guess they’re well laid out, for the Army staff has
supervised them and they’re no slouches at this brand of engineering. You would have laughed to see the labour we
employed. We had all breeds of Dago and Chinaman, and some of your own South African blacks, and they got so busy on
the job they forgot about bedtime. I used to be reckoned a bit of a slave driver, but my special talents weren’t needed
with this push. I’m going to put a lot of money into foreign missions henceforward.’

I wrote back: ‘Your trenches are no good without men. For God’s sake get something that can hold a rifle. My lot are
done to the world.’

Then I left Lefroy with the division and went down on the back of an ambulance to see for myself. I found Blenkiron,
some of the Army engineers, and a staff officer from Corps Headquarters, and I found Archie Roylance.

They had dug a mighty good line and wired it nobly. It ran from the river to the wood of La Bruyere on the little
hill above the Ablain stream. It was desperately long, but I saw at once it couldn’t well be shorter, for the division
on the south of us had its hands full with the fringe of the big thrust against the French.

‘It’s no good blinking the facts,’ I told them. ‘I haven’t a thousand men, and what I have are at the end of their
tether. If you put ’em in these trenches they’ll go to sleep on their feet. When can the French take over?’

I was told that it had been arranged for next morning, but that it had now been put off twenty-four hours. It was
only a temporary measure, pending the arrival of British divisions from the north.

Archie looked grave. ‘The Boche is pushin’ up new troops in this sector. We got the news before I left squadron
headquarters. It looks as if it would be a near thing, sir.’

‘It won’t be a near thing. It’s an absolute black certainty. My fellows can’t carry on as they are another day.
Great God, they’ve had a fortnight in hell! Find me more men or we buckle up at the next push.’ My temper was coming
very near its limits.

‘We’ve raked the country with a small-tooth comb, sir,’ said one of the staff officers. ‘And we’ve raised a scratch
pack. Best part of two thousand. Good men, but most of them know nothing about infantry fighting. We’ve put them into
platoons, and done our best to give them some kind of training. There’s one thing may cheer you. We’ve plenty of
machine-guns. There’s a machine-gun school near by and we got all the men who were taking the course and all the
plant.’

I don’t suppose there was ever such a force put into the field before. It was a wilder medley than Moussy’s
camp-followers at First Ypres. There was every kind of detail in the shape of men returning from leave, representing
most of the regiments in the army. There were the men from the machine-gun school. There were Corps troops — sappers
and A.S.C., and a handful of Corps cavalry. Above all, there was a batch of American engineers, fathered by Blenkiron.
I inspected them where they were drilling and liked the look of them. ‘Forty-eight hours,’ I said to myself. ‘With luck
we may just pull it off.’

Then I borrowed a bicycle and went back to the division. But before I left I had a word with Archie. ‘This is one
big game of bluff, and it’s you fellows alone that enable us to play it. Tell your people that everything depends on
them. They mustn’t stint the planes in this sector, for if the Boche once suspicions how little he’s got before him the
game’s up. He’s not a fool and he knows that this is the short road to Amiens, but he imagines we’re holding it in
strength. If we keep up the fiction for another two days the thing’s done. You say he’s pushing up troops?’

‘Yes, and he’s sendin’ forward his tanks.’

‘Well, that’ll take time. He’s slower now than a week ago and he’s got a deuce of a country to march over. There’s
still an outside chance we may win through. You go home and tell the R.F.C. what I’ve told you.’

He nodded. ‘By the way, sir, Pienaar’s with the squadron. He would like to come up and see you.’

‘Archie,’ I said solemnly, ‘be a good chap and do me a favour. If I think Peter’s anywhere near the line I’ll go off
my head with worry. This is no place for a man with a bad leg. He should have been in England days ago. Can’t you get
him off — to Amiens, anyhow?’

‘We scarcely like to. You see, we’re all desperately sorry for him, his fun gone and his career over and all that.
He likes bein’ with us and listenin’ to our yarns. He has been up once or twice too. The Shark–Gladas. He swears it’s a
great make, and certainly he knows how to handle the little devil.’

‘Then for Heaven’s sake don’t let him do it again. I look to you, Archie, remember. Promise.’

‘Funny thing, but he’s always worryin’ about you. He has a map on which he marks every day the changes in the
position, and he’d hobble a mile to pump any of our fellows who have been up your way.’

That night under cover of darkness I drew back the division to the newly prepared lines. We got away easily, for the
enemy was busy with his own affairs. I suspected a relief by fresh troops.

There was no time to lose, and I can tell you I toiled to get things straight before dawn. I would have liked to
send my own fellows back to rest, but I couldn’t spare them yet. I wanted them to stiffen the fresh lot, for they were
veterans. The new position was arranged on the same principles as the old front which had been broken on March 21st.
There was our forward zone, consisting of an outpost line and redoubts, very cleverly sited, and a line of resistance.
Well behind it were the trenches which formed the battle-zone. Both zones were heavily wired, and we had plenty of
machine-guns; I wish I could say we had plenty of men who knew how to use them. The outposts were merely to give the
alarm and fall back to the line of resistance which was to hold out to the last. In the forward zone I put the freshest
of my own men, the units being brought up to something like strength by the details returning from leave that the Corps
had commandeered. With them I put the American engineers, partly in the redoubts and partly in companies for
counter-attack. Blenkiron had reported that they could shoot like Dan’l Boone, and were simply spoiling for a fight.
The rest of the force was in the battle-zone, which was our last hope. If that went the Boche had a clear walk to
Amiens. Some additional field batteries had been brought up to support our very weak divisional artillery. The front
was so long that I had to put all three of my emaciated brigades in the line, so I had nothing to speak of in reserve.
It was a most almighty gamble.

We had found shelter just in time. At 6.30 next day — for a change it was a clear morning with clouds beginning to
bank up from the west — the Boche let us know he was alive. He gave us a good drenching with gas shells which didn’t do
much harm, and then messed up our forward zone with his trench mortars. At 7.20 his men began to come on, first little
bunches with machine-guns and then the infantry in waves. It was clear they were fresh troops, and we learned
afterwards from prisoners that they were Bavarians — 6th or 7th, I forget which, but the division that hung us up at
Monchy. At the same time there was the sound of a tremendous bombardment across the river. It looked as if the main
battle had swung from Albert and Montdidier to a direct push for Amiens. I have often tried to write down the events of
that day. I tried it in my report to the Corps; I tried it in my own diary; I tried it because Mary wanted it; but I
have never been able to make any story that hung together. Perhaps I was too tired for my mind to retain clear
impressions, though at the time I was not conscious of special fatigue. More likely it is because the fight itself was
so confused, for nothing happened according to the books and the orderly soul of the Boche must have been scarified
. . . At first it went as I expected. The outpost line was pushed in, but the fire from the redoubts broke up
the advance, and enabled the line of resistance in the forward zone to give a good account of itself. There was a
check, and then another big wave, assisted by a barrage from field-guns brought far forward. This time the line of
resistance gave at several points, and Lefroy flung in the Americans in a counter-attack. That was a mighty
performance. The engineers, yelling like dervishes, went at it with the bayonet, and those that preferred swung their
rifles as clubs. It was terribly costly fighting and all wrong, but it succeeded. They cleared the Boche out of a
ruined farm he had rushed, and a little wood, and re-established our front. Blenkiron, who saw it all, for he went with
them and got the tip of an ear picked off by a machine-gun bullet, hadn’t any words wherewith to speak of it. ‘And I
once said those boys looked puffy,’ he moaned.

The next phase, which came about midday, was the tanks. I had never seen the German variety, but had heard that it
was speedier and heavier than ours, but unwieldy. We did not see much of their speed, but we found out all about their
clumsiness. Had the things been properly handled they should have gone through us like rotten wood. But the whole
outfit was bungled. It looked good enough country for the use of them, but the men who made our position had had an eye
to this possibility. The great monsters, mounting a field-gun besides other contrivances, wanted something like a
highroad to be happy in. They were useless over anything like difficult ground. The ones that came down the main road
got on well enough at the start, but Blenkiron very sensibly had mined the highway, and we blew a hole like a diamond
pit. One lay helpless at the foot of it, and we took the crew prisoner; another stuck its nose over and remained there
till our field-guns got the range and knocked it silly. As for the rest — there is a marshy lagoon called the Patte
d’Oie beside the farm of Gavrelle, which runs all the way north to the river, though in most places it only seems like
a soft patch in the meadows. This the tanks had to cross to reach our line, and they never made it. Most got bogged,
and made pretty targets for our gunners; one or two returned; and one the Americans, creeping forward under cover of a
little stream, blew up with a time fuse.

By the middle of the afternoon I was feeling happier. I knew the big attack was still to come, but I had my forward
zone intact and I hoped for the best. I remember I was talking to Wake, who had been going between the two zones, when
I got the first warning of a new and unexpected peril. A dud shell plumped down a few yards from me.

‘Those fools across the river are firing short and badly off the straight,’ I said.

Wake examined the shell. ‘No, it’s a German one,’ he said.

Then came others, and there could be no mistake about the direction — followed by a burst of machine-gun fire from
the same quarter. We ran in cover to a point from which we could see the north bank of the river, and I got my glass on
it. There was a lift of land from behind which the fire was coming. We looked at each other, and the same conviction
stood in both faces. The Boche had pushed down the northern bank, and we were no longer in line with our neighbours.
The enemy was in a situation to catch us with his fire on our flank and left rear. We couldn’t retire to conform, for
to retire meant giving up our prepared position.

It was the last straw to all our anxieties, and for a moment I was at the end of my wits. I turned to Wake, and his
calm eyes pulled me together.

‘If they can’t retake that ground, we’re fairly carted,’ I said.

‘We are. Therefore they must retake it.’

‘I must get on to Mitchinson.’ But as I spoke I realized the futility of a telephone message to a man who was pretty
hard up against it himself. Only an urgent appeal could effect anything . . . I must go myself
. . . No, that was impossible. I must send Lefroy . . . But he couldn’t be spared. And all my staff
officers were up to their necks in the battle. Besides, none of them knew the position as I knew it . . . And
how to get there? It was a long way round by the bridge at Loisy.

Suddenly I was aware of Wake’s voice. ‘You had better send me,’ he was saying. ‘There’s only one way — to swim the
river a little lower down.’

‘But I volunteer,’ he said. ‘That, I believe, is always allowed in war.’

‘But you’ll be killed before you can cross.’

‘Send a man with me to watch. If I get over, you may be sure I’ll get to General Mitchinson. If not, send somebody
else by Loisy. There’s desperate need for hurry, and you see yourself it’s the only way.’

The time was past for argument. I scribbled a line to Mitchinson as his credentials. No more was needed, for Wake
knew the position as well as I did. I sent an orderly to accompany him to his starting-place on the bank.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, as we shook hands. ‘You’ll see, I’ll come back all right.’ His face, I remember, looked
singularly happy. Five minutes later the Boche guns opened for the final attack.

I believe I kept a cool head; at least so Lefroy and the others reported. They said I went about all afternoon
grinning as if I liked it, and that I never raised my voice once. (It’s rather a fault of mine that I bellow in a
scrap.) But I know I was feeling anything but calm, for the problem was ghastly. It all depended on Wake and
Mitchinson. The flanking fire was so bad that I had to give up the left of the forward zone, which caught it fairly,
and retire the men there to the battle-zone. The latter was better protected, for between it and the river was a small
wood and the bank rose into a bluff which sloped inwards towards us. This withdrawal meant a switch, and a switch isn’t
a pretty thing when it has to be improvised in the middle of a battle.

The Boche had counted on that flanking fire. His plan was to break our two wings — the old Boche plan which crops up
in every fight. He left our centre at first pretty well alone, and thrust along the river bank and to the wood of La
Bruyere, where we linked up with the division on our right. Lefroy was in the first area, and Masterton in the second,
and for three hours it was as desperate a business as I have ever faced . . . The improvised switch went, and
more and more of the forward zone disappeared. It was a hot, clear spring afternoon, and in the open fighting the enemy
came on like troops at manoeuvres. On the left they got into the battle-zone, and I can see yet Lefroy’s great figure
leading a counter-attack in person, his face all puddled with blood from a scalp wound . . .

I would have given my soul to be in two places at once, but I had to risk our left and keep close to Masterton, who
needed me most. The wood of La Bruyere was the maddest sight. Again and again the Boche was almost through it. You
never knew where he was, and most of the fighting there was duels between machine-gun parties. Some of the enemy got
round behind us, and only a fine performance of a company of Cheshires saved a complete breakthrough.

As for Lefroy, I don’t know how he stuck it out, and he doesn’t know himself, for he was galled all the time by that
accursed flanking fire. I got a note about half past four saying that Wake had crossed the river, but it was some weary
hours after that before the fire slackened. I tore back and forward between my wings, and every time I went north I
expected to find that Lefroy had broken. But by some miracle he held. The Boches were in his battle-zone time and
again, but he always flung them out. I have a recollection of Blenkiron, stark mad, encouraging his Americans with
strange tongues. Once as I passed him I saw that he had his left arm tied up. His blackened face grinned at me. ‘This
bit of landscape’s mighty unsafe for democracy,’ he croaked. ‘For the love of Mike get your guns on to those devils
across the river. They’re plaguing my boys too bad.’

It was about seven o’clock, I think, when the flanking fire slacked off, but it was not because of our divisional
guns. There was a short and very furious burst of artillery fire on the north bank, and I knew it was British. Then
things began to happen. One of our planes — they had been marvels all day, swinging down like hawks for machine-gun
bouts with the Boche infantry — reported that Mitchinson was attacking hard and getting on well. That eased my mind,
and I started off for Masterton, who was in greater straits than ever, for the enemy seemed to be weakening on the
river bank and putting his main strength in against our right . . . But my G.S.O.2 stopped me on the road.
‘Wake,’ he said. ‘He wants to see you.’

‘Not now,’ I cried.

‘He can’t live many minutes.’

I turned and followed him to the ruinous cowshed which was my divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had
swum the river opposite to Mitchinson’s right, and reached the other shore safely, though the current was whipped with
bullets. But he had scarcely landed before he was badly hit by shrapnel in the groin. Walking at first with support and
then carried on a stretcher, he managed to struggle on to the divisional headquarters, where he gave my message and
explained the situation. He would not let his wound be looked to till his job was done. Mitchinson told me afterwards
that with a face grey from pain he drew for him a sketch of our position and told him exactly how near we were to our
end . . . After that he asked to be sent back to me, and they got him down to Loisy in a crowded ambulance,
and then up to us in a returning empty. The M.O. who looked at his wound saw that the thing was hopeless, and did not
expect him to live beyond Loisy. He was bleeding internally and no surgeon on earth could have saved him.

When he reached us he was almost pulseless, but he recovered for a moment and asked for me.

I found him, with blue lips and a face drained of blood, lying on my camp bed. His voice was very small and far
away.

‘How goes it?’ he asked.

‘Please God, we’ll pull through . . . thanks to you, old man.’

‘Good,’ he said and his eyes shut.

He opened them once again.

‘Funny thing life. A year ago I was preaching peace . . . I’m still preaching it . . . I’m not
sorry.’

I held his hand till two minutes later he died.

In the press of a fight one scarcely realizes death, even the death of a friend. It was up to me to make good my
assurance to Wake, and presently I was off to Masterton. There in that shambles of La Bruyere, while the light faded,
there was a desperate and most bloody struggle. It was the last lap of the contest. Twelve hours now, I kept telling
myself, and the French will be here and we’ll have done our task. Alas! how many of us would go back to rest?
. . . Hardly able to totter, our counter-attacking companies went in again. They had gone far beyond the
limits of mortal endurance, but the human spirit can defy all natural laws. The balance trembled, hung, and then
dropped the right way. The enemy impetus weakened, stopped, and the ebb began.

I wanted to complete the job. Our artillery put up a sharp barrage, and the little I had left comparatively fresh I
sent in for a counter-stroke. Most of the men were untrained, but there was that in our ranks which dispensed with
training, and we had caught the enemy at the moment of lowest vitality. We pushed him out of La Bruyere, we pushed him
back to our old forward zone, we pushed him out of that zone to the position from which he had begun the day.

But there was no rest for the weary. We had lost at least a third of our strength, and we had to man the same long
line. We consolidated it as best we could, started to replace the wiring that had been destroyed, found touch with the
division on our right, and established outposts. Then, after a conference with my brigadiers, I went back to my
headquarters, too tired to feel either satisfaction or anxiety. In eight hours the French would be here. The words made
a kind of litany in my ears.

In the cowshed where Wake had lain, two figures awaited me. The talc-enclosed candle revealed Hamilton and Amos,
dirty beyond words, smoke-blackened, blood-stained, and intricately bandaged. They stood stiffly to attention.

‘Sirr, the prisoner,’ said Hamilton. ‘I have to report that the prisoner is deid.’

I stared at them, for I had forgotten Ivery. He seemed a creature of a world that had passed away.

‘Sirr, it was like this. Ever sin’ this mornin’, the prisoner seemed to wake up. Ye’ll mind that he was in a kind of
dream all week. But he got some new notion in his heid, and when the battle began he exheebited signs of restlessness.
Whiles he wad lie doun in the trench, and whiles he was wantin’ back to the dug-out. Accordin’ to instructions I
provided him wi’ a rifle, but he didna seem to ken how to handle it. It was your orders, sirr, that he was to have
means to defend hisself if the enemy cam on, so Amos gie’d him a trench knife. But verra soon he looked as if he was
ettlin’ to cut his throat, so I deprived him of it.’

Hamilton stopped for breath. He spoke as if he were reciting a lesson, with no stops between the sentences.

‘I jaloused, sirr, that he wadna last oot the day, and Amos here was of the same opinion. The end came at twenty
minutes past three — I ken the time, for I had just compared my watch with Amos. Ye’ll mind that the Gairmans were
beginning a big attack. We were in the front trench of what they ca’ the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin’ oor
eyes on the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin’ ower the open. Just then the prisoner catches sight of the enemy
and jumps up on the top. Amos tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face. The next we kenned he was runnin’ verra
fast towards the enemy, holdin’ his hands ower his heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.’

‘It was German,’ said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.

‘It was Gairman,’ continued Hamilton. ‘It seemed as if he was appealin’ to the enemy to help him. But they paid no
attention, and he cam under the fire of their machine-guns. We watched him spin round like a teetotum and kenned that
he was bye with it.’

‘You are sure he was killed?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sirr. When we counter-attacked we fund his body.’

There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at its head bears the name of the Graf von
Schwabing and the date of his death. The Germans took Gavrelle a little later. I am glad to think that they read that
inscription.